GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! To 28 January.
London
GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL!
by Anthony King and Scott Brown
Jermyn Street Theatre 16b Jermyn Street SW1 To 28 January 2006
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 3.30pm
Runs 1hr 40min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7287 2875
Review: Timothy Ramsden 14 January
Musicals may never seem the same again.
Appreciative reviews of new plays often add that the piece would be even better with 20 minutes lopped off. Similarly with musicals, though they’re usually a half-hour over. Lucky that doesn’t apply here as it would leave very little. Besides, this delicious satire packs so much into its brief span, it would be difficult to find anything to cut.
A physically differentiated pair, diminutive composer Bud Davenport and elongated book-writer Doug Simon, are chirpily trying-out their new musical in hope of a West End transfer (as tryout for Broadway, natch) Its subject, the inventor of the printing press and producer of a famous early printed Bible, offers the kind of arcane material whose promise of originality hardly survives the first few minutes.
One point the piece makes is how threadbare a musical’s material can be before theatricality clothes it in sets (though they have a lugubrious sound here, everything, thatched roofs or streets, being described as dirt-soaked), lighting, costume, choreography and of course the art of the orchestrator. Here the melodic lines depend upon the 2 solo voices underscored by pianist Larry.
More to the point, writer-performers Anthony King and Scott Brown have their characters condemn themselves at every smilingly over-confident step as they mangle and maul history to create the necessary number of type-songs, a dramatic crisis, a production number and dramatic sensationalism that leaves history, credibility and indeed dramatic probability behind.
From over-emphasised simplicities to brow-furrowed concern at serious matters (Gutenberg lived in 15th century Germany, hence the shadow of anti-semitism and the Holocaust portentously enter the frame) to prudish censorship of the villain-monk torturing Gutenberg’s lover, no idiocy, insincerity or pomposity escapes. It’s only horrific to reflect how often these things pass in full production guise.
This demolition job on portentous musical theatre is carried out with disarming pleasantness by Brown, features and physique ever mobile, and the more composed (so to speak) King. Inventively using the featherweight baseball-caps that identify their character of the moment (piled high for crowd-scenes), this duo’s admirably contrasted, their mock-ingratiating performances turning a cute idea into a hugely enjoyable show.
Doug Simon: Anthony King
Bud Davenport: Scott Brown
Larry: Michael Roulston
Lighting: Phil s Hunter
2006-01-16 15:32:22